Every Melburnian knows Coop's Shot Tower — though many might not recognise it from this photo.

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Every Melburnian knows Coop's Shot Tower — though many might not recognise it from these photos. Since the late 1980s it's been cooped under a 20-storey glass cone in Melbourne Central, where it's become one of the city's "most Instagrammed buildings". Until the 1940s, the 50m shot tower was the tallest building in Melbourne's CBD. It was built in 1888 to make shot, the lead pellets fired from shotguns: molten lead was poured through a sieve at the top of the tower, which formed into spherical droplets as they fell, then cooled in a pool of water at the bottom of the tower. Walter Coop, the tower's owner, perfected the shot-making process there — and made a fortune. There were once several shot towers dotted around Australia, but only three have escaped demolition: Coop's Shot Tower; the shot tower in Clifton Hill, Melbourne, which is Australia's tallest; and the tower in Taroona, Hobart, which is Australia's oldest. (State Library of Victoria)